June 19th, also known as Juneteenth is the celebration day of emancipation in Texas. Which is a pretty neat holiday by my count. But it’s also my friend Trina’s birthday, and this year it also fell on Father’s Day, and we couldn’t think of three better reasons to throw a pool party than those. Also, it’s a Sunday in mid-June. And the pool? It has water in it. Two more good reasons. Also, all that old dilapidated lawn furniture we owned? I painted it all and brought it back to life. Yet another really good reason.

So, we invited some people over who might be interested in celebrating Father’s Day or Trina Day or Juneteenth or There’s Water in the Pool Day.

Lindsey and I told everyone we’d make the sides if they’d BYO meat for the grill, and got to work planning our part of the menu. We decided on the classics: baked beans, potato salad, bean and corn salsa, cole slaw, crudites, spinach salad, homemade ice cream, and cupcakes.

I was tasked with potato salad, cole slaw, crudites/dip, Rotel cheese dip (birthday girl’s request), caesar spread, watermelon, cupcakes (yellow cake with sticky chocolate icing – the best), and chocolate ice cream.

Lindsey did baked beans, spinach salad, corn and bean salsa, Blue Moon cupcakes, and vanilla ice cream. Plus she manned the grill ALL. DAY. LONG. and cooked up a bajillion hot dogs, burgers, pieces of chicken, and giant manly steaks for the dads. Whew.

Talk about overkill. Overkill, however, is how we roll. Is there another way?

The crowd favorite of the day was definitely Lindsey’s beans, and had I been able to pry my toddler out of the pool I’d have taken a picture of them, but you’ll just have to trust me on this one: they were FANTASTIC.

Lindsey’s Famous Beans

4 cans of pork and beans, drained
2 cans of Great Northern beans, drained
1/4c jarred jalapenos (less if using fresh)
2 c dark brown sugar
1 1/4 c ketchup
4 Tbsp Dijon mustard
3 Tbsp cider vinegar
6 slices of bacon, cooked and crumbled
a couple good shakes of worchestershire

Lindsey’s Directions:

Pour beans into a 9×13 baking dish, and add all ingredients. Mix well. Cook uncovered at 300 for an hour, longer if dinner isn’t ready or you’re enjoying your cocktail. One of the great things about these beans is that you can basically throw them in the oven and forget about them until you’re hungry.

Tonight, I plan to eat the tiny dab that was left over and do it prison-style so no one else can have them.

The only concern on my menu was the slaw. A) I have a suspiscion that most people hate cole slaw. B) I kinda hate it myself. So I wanted to find a way to make it enjoyable for those of us who are generally “meh” (or worse) on the stuff. I took it to the streets, and asked people on The Flying Fork Facebook Page what they do to make their slaw a little more special. I got all manner of awesome responses, from “add wing sauce” to “fruit and nuts” to “go Asian.” And since I cannot resist Asian food ever, I decided to go that direction.

First I used the handy dandy (I do watch too much Blues Clues) Cuisinart to shred a head of green cabbage.

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Then I threw half a large red bell pepper into the Cuisinart and shredded it.

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Then I poured in about half a bag of already julienned carrots that I think are from the Baby Jesus, and chopped up a whole bundle of green onions, up to the part where they get dark green (and I threw the tops out). That is it for the vegetable part of the show.

I wanted to make this slaw Asian, mostly because I had recently picked up a bottle of wasabi mustard at Checker’s and I was itching to use it. It’s so multi-talented – it’s great on fish before grilling, or on a bologna sandwich, or added to a salad dressing – you name it. I hate when I’m out of it and get a little sweaty.

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Then I whipped up a large amount of dressing because I wanted it to be pretty saucey and not be dry or tasteless.

Asian Slaw Dressing

1/4 C sugar
1/4 C olive oil
3 T sesame oil
2 T wasabi mustard
1/4 C rice wine vinegar
1/4 C soy sauce (low sodium)
2 tsp fresh ginger
2 cloves minced garlic
1 tsp World Fusion Gourmet chiliracha (could sub regular Sriracha, but I recommend this stuff)
a few dashes of Thai fish sauce

Shake or whisk vigorously and then pour it over the slaw. I did it just a couple of hours in advance so it would have time to soak in a bit but not get soggy.

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This was seriously awesome and has cured my aversion to slaw, possibly permanently. I think the trick for me is to stay away from creamy and always stick to vinegar-y, which is basically the same policy I have for potato salad as well. I can’t believe it took me well over thirty years to figure this out.

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Photo by Trina Baker at Gallery 32

Johnny sure seemed to think the eats were okay, particularly the ice cream and cupcakes.